I’ve dabbled in ham radio a bit, comms is something that at least some of the right are thinking about with these kinds of things, there’s more than a handful of right wing doomsday pepper lunatics in the ham radio circle, if you ever decide to listen in on CB radio chatter, there’s a good chance you’re gonna hear some lunatic ranting about conspiracy bullshit, I’m pretty sure I saw some pictures of guys at 1/6 with some baofengs (cheap Chinese ham radios, pretty much every ham has one or two kicking around)

I remember when I first started looking into ham radio, I was googling some stuff, clicking into a whole bunch of different results not paying too much attention to where I was, and I found one forum thread that was actually pretty informative until halfway down the thread someone said something really unhinged about race wars or something, and no one called him out about it and some even agreed with him, so I took a look at what site I was on and it was the stormfront forums. Nope I out of there really quick.

Also not the only experience I had like that, few of my hobbies and interests have significant overlap with the right wing lunatics fringe since I’m into some outdoors camping and survivalist type stuff, the algorithms try really hard to suck me into crazytown sometimes.

Pockets-

Front right:
keys if they’re not clipped to a belt loop
Lighter
Cigarettes if I don’t have a shirt pocket or cargo pockets Phone - pixel 7 pro, otterbox case

Keys: Carabiner
NiteIze DoohickKey FishKey
Small comb
House and car keys
A couple frequently used store membership cards
Mostly held together with s-biners, or niteize g series biners

Front left:
Mustache wax
Pixel buds
Knife- depends what I’m doing, most commonly an opinel, but

Back right:
Bandanna

Back left:
Chums Zipper Wallet, with key to my bike lock attached
A couple bandaids and safety pins in the wallet

Cheap sunglasses, no real brand or style preference, but I like metal frames, usually hanging from my shirt collar when not in use

Left wrist- Casio Protrek prg-550 with a cheap nato strap

Work bag:
Maxpedition Kodiak gear slinger (I like this bag’s functionality but I’ve fallen out of love with the military styling, and it’s probably bigger than I need these days, but it takes a beating and hasn’t fallen apart in over a decade of regular use so I can’t bring myself to replace it)
My work headset
Phone charger
Cheap Lenovo tablet for reading (M8 I think?)
Sometimes my switch
I normally keep a small first aid kit in my bag but I took it out for something a little while ago and keep forgetting to put it back, I believe it’s whatever the smallest ultralight/watertight kit that adventure medical sells
1l narrow mouth nalgene bottle ’ Maxpedition pocket organizer

In that organizer:
Zebra f-701 pen
Pentel graphgear 1000 pencil in .9 lead
Spare lead
Zebra pm-701 permanent marker
Yellow sharpie highlighter (if anyone knows of a highlighter thats less cheap looking, preferably metal with replaceable ink, I’m interested)
Thrunite ti4 NW flashlight
Pocket screwdriver, little plastic pen shaped thing, double ended with 2 double ended bits at either end, I think mine is Stanley branded but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen other brands selling the exact same thing with different logos
Small crescent wrench (I think channel lock brand)
County comm widgy pry bar
CRKT CEO flipper
Tide pen
Lighter
Eraser
Field notes pitch black notebook
County comm titanium ruler
Samsung bar flash drive
Eraser
Spare AAA batteries
Small sewing kit
Small spool of some very strong thread (I think dyneema, not sure, pretty sure I picked that up from county comm as well) Wrapped the handle in some Paracord
USB A to C adapter (my wife borrowed it a while ago and I haven’t gotten it back yet)

Metal Stanley lunchbox
20oz Stanley thermos/travel mug thing (I don’t think they make my exact model anymore but the “trigger action” one is pretty close

Not really relevant to the comment you replied to and only tangentially related to some other comments in this thread. We’re talking about knives and soda caps here.

A lot of us don’t think of our knives as weapons, they’re tools.

It’s rare that I don’t carry a knife, and using it in self defense is the furthest thing from my mind every day when I put it in my pocket. I use it for things like opening packages, cutting string, sharpening pencils, use various other tools on the knife like screwdrivers, pliers, awls, I have a lot of outdoor hobbies like camping, hiking, fishing, and knives are kind of indispensable for those pursuits.

If I’m ever in a situation where I absolutely need to defend myself, and I don’t really foresee that ever being necessary, I’m probably not even going to think of using my knife in self defense, I don’t think of it as a weapon anymore than I think of my wallet being a weapon, it’s just something that lives in my pocket that I frequently need to use.

And knives make a shitty weapon, if you’re close enough to stab someone, you’re close enough to get punched in the face, or for your assailant to wrestle it out of your hands and stab you with it. You’d be better swinging around pretty much any larger object within arms reach to create some space. They say about knife fights that the loser dies in the street, the winner dies in the ambulance.

The knives I tend to carry especially aren’t good weapons, most need 2 hands to open, aren’t really designed ergonomically as fighting knives, most are fairly small so I’d have to get really lucky to hit anything vital and would probably just piss them off more and not stop the attack quickly, some of them don’t even have a pointy blade so not good for stabbing (I actually make it a point to choose less threatening looking knives for my EDC needs) some of them don’t lock open so they’d just as like close on my fingers as cause any harm to my assailant, and some of them actually lock in the closed position so definitely not good for a weapon.

I’m not saying that everyone who carries a knife has the same mindset. Lots of people do carry them as weapons, those people are idiots. And not everyone puts the same thought into the knives they carry and just get something that looks cool whether or not it’s functional for their needs.

I also don’t carry anything for self defense regularly and don’t own a gun (not opposed to gun ownership in general, but my thoughts on that are part whole 'nother debate,) in general if I feel like I need to be prepared to defend myself if I go somewhere, I just don’t go there. There’s a bit of privilege to that, since I live in a safe area and can make that call, not everyone is lucky enough to live somewhere they can feel safe. The only exception is the pepper spray I keep with my dogs leash, since my wife or I often end up walking her alone at night, and that’s more of a precaution against loose dogs, coyotes, etc. than against people.

There’s a lot to say about Americans’ love of violence and weapons and the sort of mindset we have about self defense, and overall I tend to think that a lot of my country is absolutely insane when it comes to those matters. That said, I also think people who look at the little swiss army type knives, or Leatherman multitools I tend to carry and see a terrifying deadly weapon have their own issues to work out too.

As far as straws go, I agree that for most people in most situations they’re unnecessary for most soft drinks. I do, however, think they’re a pretty important part of the experience with some cocktails though, it has some effect on how fast you drink it, how it hits your tongue and you experience the flavors, if the drink is layered it effects how those different layers mix, what order you get them in and how the drink evolves as you drink it.

That said, I think most reusable straws make for a bad substitute in a lot of cases because they’re too thick compared to the coffee stirrer type straws I usually tend to get in bars when I order a cocktail that calls for a straw. Thinner straws would probably be kind of a pain to clean though.

I’m not a huge fan of metal straws, they’re just too hard and kind of unnerving if they crack against your teeth.

I have some bamboo straws I like, and they fit my vibe since I make a lot of tiki drinks at home.

AFAIK, these tethered caps are mostly an EU thing (and at the very least are not widely used in my area of the US) and a lot of European countries are less knife-friendly than the US.

I feel like it’s a pretty common experience for a lot of us maker types- we come up with a solution to a problem, maybe we tried searching for one and came up empty, or maybe we just thought it would be fun to make from the get-go, then sometime later we stumble upon someone selling pretty much the exact thing we made and think “huh, so thats what these things are called” maybe with a touch of disappointment that your idea wasn’t as original as you thought, or maybe just intrigued because you just added another term to your vocabulary and you have a better idea what to search for next time.

Yours looks good though, It’s probably unnecessary but I’d be tempted to add like a U-shaped cradle piece to the top to help keep it in place if your computer ever gets jostled for any reason, and maybe a jam nut at the bottom to make sure it stays where you set it. Again probably totally unnecessary, but I always figure that if it’s worth doing it’s worth overdoing.

What sort of printer and filament/resin are you using? I’d worry a bit about it warping or sagging over time from the heat inside a computer. I know some materials can handle the heat better or worse than others, but I haven’t dipped my toes into 3d printing myself yet, so I may be overestimating how much of an issue it is.

And can your printer make decent screw threads, or do you have to clean them up afterwards with a tap and die or something? I’m not really up on the current state of 3d printers, but one of the first 3d printed objects I remember ever handling was back in high school 15 or so years ago. One of my teachers went to a conference where they were showing off new gadgets for computer and shop classes, and he brought back a couple 3d printed crescent wrenches for us to fondle. I remember the screws being really crunchy and they almost but didn’t quite work, so in the back of my mind I’ve always thought of functional screw threads as something 3d printers can’t quite do, so it’s wild to me if we’ve gone from barely able to make even a coarse thread with huge tolerances work to being able to make pretty fine threads with pretty tight tolerances.

Of course back then, they hadn’t even really settled on calling it “3d printing,” I remember that teacher calling it a “rapid prototyping machine” when he was telling us about it, and described it as being “like a 3d printer”

I may be misinterpreting what you’re describing, but it kind of sounds like you’ve reinvented the machinist jack.

Not throwing shade, it makes sense and there’s a reason that machinists the world over use them to tackle the same sort of problem of how to support sagging parts- it’s simple and it works. And coming up with the same solution shows that you have a good understanding of the issue and how to tackle it.

Just pointing it out because I love the overlap between different fields and hobbies, and maybe if you didn’t already know that machinist jacks were a thing you’ll find inspiration for a version 2.0 if you ever feel the need to make one.

I’d also like to see your version when you get around to sharing it.

I think the scam calls are annoying, but it takes basically no effort to ignore them when I’m not in the mood to mess with them, so I don’t mind them so much.

I figure though if I can keep one tied up talking to me for a few minutes that’s one less chance for them to be scamming someone’s grandmother. It’s a tiny drop in the ocean, but it’s still potentially one less person getting scammed that day, and that’s worth something.

It depends on what I’m doing

If I’m going somewhere out of easy driving distance and hoping maybe some friends will come along, I’ll start floating the idea about a year out, start making more solid plans about 6 months out. Give people time to get passports, save up for plane tickets, etc.

If it’s an overnight to a long weekend with just me and my wife, maybe a couple weeks, we could probably do day-of sometimes but we gotta make sure someone can watch our dog.

Not exactly the same thing, but my wife and I saw Logan at a drive in theater when it came out

Towards the end when he’s all fucked up and near death, the audio started doing all kinds of weird shit, cutting in and out, getting fuzzy and distorted, etc.

We thought it was a pretty cool effect to show the sort of state he was in and we were all about it.

Then we heard some crystal clear audio coming from the cars next to us, turns out it was just my car’s battery dying from running the radio.

Still think it was a cool effect, would watch it again that way if it were an option.

I’ve since picked up a battery powered radio for future drive-ins (we try to go at least once a year)

You could chant primary colors at kindergarteners online line for a maximum of 20 hours per week, or in person for a maximum of 10 hours per week

That may work for you, and if it does I’m happy for you, but for me, as much as I want more time for myself and my hobbies, one thing I want even more is to not ever spend any amount of time doing anything even remotely like that.

I also have no real interest in working abroad even if I didn’t think that job sounded horrible. A week or two of vacation, sure, but by the end of week 2, I’m ready to go home, and that’s really the point here, I want to be able to just stay home, and only leave when it’s to do something I want to do.

The problem is that the one thing I want to do that I’m not already doing is “not work”

I don’t have any grand plans to take up new hobbies or anything in my retirement (though I’m sure I’ll continue collecting hobbies just as I always have) I just want to be able to do them on my own schedule

Every time I see one of those “employees must wash hands” signs, I think about getting some custom made “and everyone else should too” signs made up to start posting below them in public bathrooms everywhere I go.

It of course varries from one school or area to another, and from different age groups.

I ended up going to 4 proms, my own junior and senior proms, the senior prom my junior year because a girl asked me, and then I ended up dating a girl at another high school after I graduated and ended up going to her senior prom (in case anyone’s getting skeeved at that, we were both 18 at the time we started dating, just a few months difference between us, I just barely made the cutoff to be part of the previous grade and she just missed it)

That last prom was the only one where I was actually dating my date, the other 3 we just went as friends, although I did have a pretty big crush on the girl I took to both of my own proms but could never quite work up the nerve to ask her out.

There were never any elaborate promposals or anything, that was just starting around that time and hadn’t quite caught on yet, my sister a couple years behind me did it, nothing too elaborate I think she gave her friend a cake and balloons.

The promposal thing is mostly just that it’s silly and fun, and nowadays I guess it probably makes for a funny tiktok.

Prom was not a particularly big deal in my area, if I had to attach any particular significance to it, it’s just that it’s kind of your first “adult” formal event that you’re attending for your own sake, not because you’re going to a cousins wedding, not something like your first communion or bar mitzvah or whatever when you’re still very much a kid. You get to dress up, you get a fancy meal, you rent a limo, maybe you go to a cool post-prom party and you’re going to be out till the wee hours of the morning mostly left to your own devices. It’s fun for its own sake, and the kind of event most teens don’t really get to experience very often.

I was in Montreal for the eclipse, I’m sure it was a very busy tourist weekend and they were ready for the influx of us English speakers coming to town, but I didn’t have any issues anywhere.

It was probably my favorite city I’ve ever visited. Everything we ate was amazing, even when we just stopped into some random hole in the wall Chinese takeout place for a quick bite.

Public transit blew anything I’ve ever experienced in the states clean out of the water. I was also kind of in awe at how bikeable the city was.

There’s not many cities I’ve visited that I’m itching to go back to, but I’m definitely planning to go back sometime.

To be fair, you didn’t say it had to be a modern technological invention, just that it impacted the modern world

A large part of the “magic” with human relationships is that out of all of the 8 billion some people in the world, those who are close to you have chosen to spend time with you. For all of our flaws, they see your true nature and value you for it, and choose to have you as part of their lives.

With an AI, that may not be a thing.

If they’re programmed to like you, they’re at best a toy and at worst a slave. There’s no freedom for them to choose or not to choose to be with you. You’re getting an imitation of a relationship. It could be a convincing imitation, with built-in arguments and other idiosyncrasies, but to me every time I hit one of those, it would just be a stark reminder that it’s not the real thing and it’s just programmed to behave that way.

If they’re not programmed to like you and are free to form or not form connections with humans, there’s no guarantee you’d have any more luck wooing an AI than you would a human.

A lot of those are features of some government jobs, but not necessarily government jobs in general

they do not pay commensurate to similar jobs in non-gov positions.

No, but they do make up for it at least somewhat in benefits, which sounds like something OP is interested in, and since they’re looking for a less stressful job, they probably have also come to terms with the fact that the pay would likely be lower

you must conduct mandatory quarterly drug tests to ensure you are in compliance to federal drug laws.

That varies on the nature of the job and the agency you work for. Like I said, I work in 911 dispatch, so I’m subject to a lot of federal regulations and such, including about drug use, but the only time I got drug tested was when I was hired, the only circumstance I’m subject to testing is if they have reason to think I’m intoxicated on the job. (The test when I was hired was a hair test, fun fact, at least at the place that did our testing, their policy is if you shave your head like I do, the next place they take a sample from is your armpit, I was expecting them to take it from my beard, but they wanted pit hair)

you must submit fingerprint and/or DNA samples

I did get fingerprinted, that is true. No DNA samples though. Not exactly unique to government jobs though, a lot of private sector childcare and healthcare employees, casino workers, bank employees, and security companies, just to name a few, require fingerprinting.

you must disclose many financial, foreign family, or unusual hobbies, so they can legally deny you things such as certain rights in case you are in a job that requires security clearances or NDAs.

Don’t recall that ever coming up in my hiring process, and I handle a lot of privileged info. Not exactly a security clearance or NDA, but lots of personal info and such that I can’t talk about outside of work.

it’s difficult to promote to higher pay positions unless you grease the right hands and network the right people or simply be lucky right-place-right-time, you will simply stagnate in your place for a long time (or just simply be furloughed).

The same can be said about a whole lot of private sector jobs as well. Networking is a big deal. This also depends on the exact agency/department you work for, a lot of agencies do like to promote internally to fill openings and new positions when possible. At my work it’s pretty rare to see someone totally new brought in to fill most of our positions we get people being promoted and moved around a fair bit when there’s an opening, and most of my chain of command up to the director of my department started out as dispatchers and worked their way up through various supervisory roles, deputy directors, etc. Some positions are of course more of a dead end than others, there’s only so many places you can move up to from courthouse clerk, but it can also be pretty easy to transfer to a different department, I’ve had a fair amount of coworkers move from the communications division (which dispatch is a part of) to logistics, IT, emergency planning, the coroners office, there have been cases where underperforming dispatchers have been found other jobs in the county, etc. And not everyone cares about promotion, I’m happy to keep answering 911 calls for the next 20 or so years, and I suspect that OP maybe doesn’t care too much about long term career prospects since it sounds like= they’re basically just looking for something to hold them over until retirement.

if the gov shuts down, you don’t get paid.

If a private company shuts down, you don’t get paid and you have to go looking for a new job because it’s probably not going to open back up in a few days or weeks after the assholes in charge get their heads out of their asses.

If you have a government job, pensions are still very much a thing. Something like 1/3 of jobs are in the public sector and the majority of them offer a pension, and they’re pretty rare but there are still some private sector jobs offering pensions as well, though I wouldn’t hold my breath trying to get one of those.

It takes a whole lot of people to keep the local, state, and federal governments running, pull up your county job listings sometimes, they’re probably hiring for a few different jobs at any given time, some require very specific skills, training, or education, others are going to be basic janitorial work, office clerks, etc. and everything in between that pretty much anyone could manage, and everything in between, and almost all of them will qualify for a pension plan.

Source- am 911 dispatcher, vested in my pension, still another 15-20ish years before I can collect on it